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Johnnie Walker Maker Creates Plastic-Free Paper-Based Spirits Bottle (theguardian.com) 115

Posted by BeauHD from the drink-environmentally-friendly dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The multinational drinks company Diageo says it has created the world's first paper-based spirits bottle that is 100% plastic-free. The company said it was aiming to launch the bottle early next year with its Johnnie Walker whisky brand in one market before rolling it out worldwide. The bottle is made from sustainably sourced pulp, complies with international food and drink safety standards and is fully recyclable. The contents are protected by a liner, made of resin rather than plastic, which holds the liquid but disintegrates when finished. The cap will be made of aluminum. The report notes that a paper beer bottle was unveiled last year by Danish brewer Carlsberg.
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Johnnie Walker Maker Creates Plastic-Free Paper-Based Spirits Bottle More

Johnnie Walker Maker Creates Plastic-Free Paper-Based Spirits Bottle

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  • Glass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @07:07PM (#60295458)

    Glass is plastic-free, too. And recyclable!

    • Nobody recycles glass anymore. Lots of places stopped accepting glass in the recycle bin this year. If you do want to be responsible and recycle glass you have to drop it off yourself at specific locations.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Presence Eternal ( 56763 )

        Unlike paper glass recycling is a great idea, but there's a lot of problems with doing it in the US. Here is an article about it. https://cen.acs.org/materials/... [acs.org]

        This is specific to container glass. Leaded glass is a whole other can of worms and is far less than worthless right now. It is exquisitely beautiful, but there are about a hundred old CRT displays to get rid of for every decorative window someone wants.

        • The US recycle companies were only thinking about which country they could send all the recycleable materials to.
          Not to speak about the other junk that gets mixed up with the recycleable.
          On some footage you could literally see the plastic stick out of piles of cardboard.
          "Too hard to seperate".

        • How do decorative windows come into it? About the only place one is likely to see a lead glass window is in the radiology department at the nearest hospital

          Interesting link, by the way.

          • Re:Too expensive (Score:5, Informative)

            by Presence Eternal ( 56763 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @08:27PM (#60295646)

            Well, I am in fact assuming that lead glass is lead glass, and that it varies only by percentage of lead content. Perhaps I'm encountering nomenclatureal fuckery. Anyway, my understanding is that lead glass has very nice optical properties and has a long history of being used in decorative glass, especially cut decorative glass. For instance Waterford crystal.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            • Ah, I think I see.

              Lead glass does indeed sparkle and it does get used for fancy drinking glasses and such. Lead leaches into the contents but that's another story. I think it's fair to assume that people are not going to throw many of these into the recycling bin.
              Lead glass also gets used in CRT displays but as far as lead glass windows are concerned we're not likely to see one outside of a hospital x-ray room.

              Leaded glass consists of small pieces of glass (lead glass or not, usually not) held together with

        • "Leaded glass" is ambiguous. Glass containing lead compounds is used in CRTs to reduce x-ray emission. "Flint glass" used to have a high lead content, but modern optical flints use other metal compounds to achieve close to the same results. I don't know if such glasses were used in fancy glassware. A stained glass window using colored glass in lead or lead alloy slotted bars (cames) is also known as leaded glass.

          • I've read in many places crt glass is easily recycled into new crts, and I've read in many places that crystal glass contains lead, especially historically. The wikipedia article on lead glass discusses it in the context of crts in the exactly same section as decorative glassware. It seems I should have used glassware as the example instead of windows. Barring insight from a glass scientist or artist that's as far as I'm likely to get.

      • Nope. Glass is still recycled in first world countries. We have a twice-a-week glass cellection service as standard.

      • Nobody recycles glass anymore

        No, nobody in your locality recycles glass anymore. The rest of the world does it just fine.

    • But much more energy-intensive to produce than paper. Heavier and more fragile too.
      A cynic might suspect that this is "greenwashing" disguising cost cutting.
      Oh, and "plastic free"? What do you think the paper will be lined with to stop it leaking?

    • Except that recycling isn't profitable and so it isn't really done anymore. People need to stop being babies about their bottles. The planet's slow decline into a shit hole isn't worth your desire to taste alcohol pit of a specific container based on arbitrary traditions. Get over yourself.

      • And I need to read my posts before I submit them so I don't make stupid typos!

      • People need to quit being babies about the fictitious "planet's slow decline into a shit hole". It isn't happening; conditions are improving.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Xenx ( 2211586 )
          Whether you're right about conditions improving or not, we should want them to continue improving. I'm not saying these paper bottles are the right answer in this case, but as a whole "things are getting better" does not mean we can go back to the way things were.

    • Re:Glass (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @08:02PM (#60295592)
      I take it you weren't around before the early 1980s when plastic bottles and aluminum cans replaced glass bottles. The street gutters were full of glass shards. Glass shards also used to litter the landscape. It was fairly common to get glass cuts in your feet if you played barefoot at the park.

      Because glass was made from natural ingredients (sand), people had absolutely no compunction about just throwing them away instead of throwing them in the trash or collecting them to recycle. Bottle deposits were begun to try stem the tide of broken glass bottles everywhere, but the deposit amount never really got high enough to make a big difference. (And if it did, you could apply the same deposit to plastic bottles to get people to recycle them instead of throw them away in the environment.) Yeah plastic is worse for the environment, but a plastic bottle littering a beach can be cleaned up by picking up just one item. A broken glass bottle, you're looking at closer to 5 minutes to gather dozens if not hundreds of shards.

      • It was fairly common to get glass cuts in your feet if you played barefoot at the park.

        Tell me about it. When I was 5, I was playing around outside with some friends when I stepped on a broken glass bottle while running. Ended up getting a dozen stitches in the bottom of my foot.

      • Re:Glass (Score:4, Informative)

        by Syberz ( 1170343 ) on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:07AM (#60296582)
        I've been living in Germany for the last few years and they manage just fine with having glass for almost all bottles and nobody's worried about cutting themselves on broken glass. It does help that the deposits on bottles is much more interesting than in North America and that there are many specialized drink shops that have the space to store empties.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Elendil ( 11919 )

        Because glass was made from natural ingredients (sand), people had absolutely no compunction about just throwing them away instead of throwing them in the trash or collecting them to recycle.

        Yeah, replacing glass with plastic has definitely changed that for the better.

      • That is just patently unfair, the entire beach can be turned into a single piece of glass if you so desire. You may want to evacuate first though.
    • Not a single thing wrong wtih glass, and if you're talking about alcohol, then I'd choose glass over anything else. Easily recycleable too.

    • Glass is plastic-free, too. And recyclable!

      True, but the recycling process uses a lot of water, energy and sometimes harsh chemicals. There's also the transport cost. Glass is heavy and costs much more to ship than plastic or paper, so moving it around has a larger carbon footprint than shipping plastic, paper or aluminum.

      That said, drunken barfights won't have quite the same impact when, instead of shattering a glass bottle to use the jagged edges as a knife, the fighter tears his bottle in half in hops of giving his opponent a paper cut.

  • British built paper drop tanks in WW2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @07:12PM (#60295462)

    http://www.feltondesignanddata... [feltondesignanddata.com]

    Hooch should be easy compared to that.

  • We drank Johnny Walker in college in paper vessels too. We called it a "security feature".

    If anybody complained that the cup was leaking... that meant they were drinking too slow. That was the security.

    • We drank Johnny Walker in college in paper vessels too. We called it a "security feature".

      If anybody complained that the cup was leaking... that meant they were drinking too slow. That was the security.

      This. 7-11 big gulp cups, the wax paper kind. Leave some space to add a mickey when you fill it, you can sip on it for hours.

      Eventually the alcohol dissolves the wax and the bottom falls out. There is really no place that is convenient.

      The newer plastic cups are far more reliable. Gotta love technology.

      • See, that's why you drop a canned beverage in the bug gulp, can-and-all, lid it, and stick the straw in the canned beverage. Fits perfectly, and the glue doesn't dissolve. The ultra big gulp with a dome lid will fit a taper-top 40... but frankly you'll look like even more of a fucking slob walking around sipping on an ultra big gulp than you do just walking around the neighborhood drinking a 40, so you might as well just risk arrest and drink the damn thing out in the open.

        • (See, that's the kind of practical knowledge you build as a classically trained chef. As a young line cook it was hot pockets and 40s at home, while at work you're tasting osetra caviar and getting sampling tastes of $500 bottles of champagne.)

        • See, that's why you drop a canned beverage in the bug gulp, can-and-all, lid it, and stick the straw in the canned beverage. Fits perfectly, and the glue doesn't dissolve.

          But you still have to carry a bunch of cans.....

        • but frankly you'll look like even more of a fucking slob walking around sipping on an ultra big gulp than you do just walking around the neighborhood drinking a 40, so you might as well just risk arrest and drink the damn thing out in the open.

          Or, you could just vote to get rid of the open container laws, and be more like New Orleans, where you can freely walk about with alcoholic beverages.

  • This will fail (Score:3)

    by geekd ( 14774 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @07:13PM (#60295466) Homepage

    Premium spirits need to be in a glass bottle. Nothing says "cheap" like a plastic bottle, and a paper one is even worse.

    • Re:This will fail (Score:4, Insightful)

      by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @08:10PM (#60295610)
      Actually, ideally they should be in oak barrels for 12+ years, paper for a day or two on the store shelf, and a nice glass decanter in your home for however long it takes you to finish it off..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      walker etc have been making hip flask plastic bottles for ages though. they're handy for some uses.

      but think about this.. johnnie walker has appeared in basically all shops in asia in the past 20 years. even the higher end walkers that supposedly take 5-10 years to make. goes for many other scotch brands too. that's a lot of shops and a whole lot of sold bottles. that's more black label bottles that you can shake a stick at.

      though another thing I want to ask if it's plyable and made from paper how is it not

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's all about marketing and perception. If they push these new bottles hard enough they could take off.

      Maybe they could encourage people to use decanters. As well as looking fancy it also helps limit the amount you drink by measuring it out while you are still fully sober.

    • Nothing says "cheap" like a plastic bottle, and a paper one is even worse.

      Cheap being associated with plastic / paper is nothing more than a chicken and egg problem that you have perpetuated with your own snobbery.

      There is absolutely zero reason the most expensive of drinks can't be served in a paper or plastic. Shit man if you go to a bottle shop and actually buy whiskey you'll find the cheap ones are in glass on the shelves, while the expensive ones are the ones in fancy paper packaging.

      Get your head out of your arse.

    • It's Johnnie Walker. They aren't concerned about being seen as "cheap" on most of their product. I have my doubts you'll see their gold or blue bottles turn into paper any time soon.

  • Just think how many less people will be hurt, because these bottles can't be broken and used as a weapon LOL.

  • Better than paper straws? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I really hope it works better than "paper straws" did, considering what a mess those are. Whisky bottles that leak are not the sort of thing that make your customers happy, no matter how much virtue signal they're putting out.

  • Posting to undo a mis-mod.

  • The contents are protected by a liner, made of resin rather than plastic, which holds the liquid but disintegrates when finished.

    Um, how does the liner know when you're finished? Seriously, does it break down when exposed to air or not exposed to liquor? Does the fact that the liner "disintegrates" at some time limit the shelf-life of open bottles -- or unopened ones? Seems hinky. Do they simply mean that the liner is easily crushed into dust and can be recycled along with the paper bottle. If so, how fragile is this resin. Also, I guess we won't be finding 100-year-old unopened bottles of this in sunken ships.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      It probably doesn't. Current long going trend is to claim that standard drink packaging of "carton outside, plastic inside" is recyclable because "both plastic and carton are recyclable if separated". As there's no feasible way to actually separate them, we end up burning this sort of packaging instead, and where trash burning isn't a thing, it's landfilled.

      This seems to be the continuation of that. I'm guessing their claim is going to be that resin wears out with time. Actual time frame omitted of course.

      • ... Current long going trend is to claim that standard drink packaging of "carton outside, plastic inside" is recyclable because "both plastic and carton are recyclable if separated". As there's no feasible way to actually separate them, we end up burning this sort of packaging instead, and where trash burning isn't a thing, it's landfilled.

        Whereas the current glass bottle, while more expensive, is infinitely recyclable. I imagine the product will cost consumers the same, if not more, using this paper/resin bottle while costing the company less -- which is the real motivation here.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          There's unfortunately a similar caveat in glass recycling related to colouring used. Colourless bottles are indeed recyclable almost infinitely with very little material loss. But a lot of glass uses colouring. For example, wine bottles are overwhelmingly coloured. Those are very hard to recycle, because you need to match the colouring before melting them down. This works well when you have a very wide circulation product (i.e. when large circulation sodas like Sprite had their specific green coloured bottl

    • I was going to point out that exact thing.

    • "Shelf life" just got a whole new meaning. This is clearly something that should be consumed "best before" a date because after the date, it's sludge.

  • Pretty sure the classic square Johnny glass bottles were 100% plastic free too, if it has a cork.

  • Wow, nice going for them! I'm glad a drinking company is taking action on plastic waste rather than other companies who aren't doing anything at all
  • "One prototype uses a thin recycled PET polymer film barrier, and the other a 100% bio-based PEF polymer film barrier. " Also to be noted is that "resin" is the term that plastics people use to describe...plastic. https://packagingeurope.com/ca... [packagingeurope.com] https://www.avantium.com/busin... [avantium.com]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by piojo ( 995934 )

      Resin means a plastic that has not been crosslinked yet, or if you are making art, resin also means plastic that was made by such a process--for instance a cast acrylic or epoxy bead would still be called resin after it has cured.

      I've also read "resin" as referring to tree chemicals which are used in varnishes: they are solid but soluble in solvents. For example, copal. Shellac could be considered a resin due to its similar characteristics. But Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] is more specific: a resin is something convertible in

    • Another thing I was going to bring up. Often resins are in the plastics families, but I don't know the specific terminologies as I'm not a chemist.
      If it's a resin that is intending to hold food, I doubt it's any of the non-plastics variety that I know of, you really aren't supposed to put those in your mouth, and if you screw that up, it will taste awful and you likely won't do it a second time. I'd think alcohol would be really good are picking up horrible tastes from the non-plastics types.

      Overall, the e

  • Cutting out the middle-man (Score:3)

    by Drishmung ( 458368 ) on Monday July 13, 2020 @09:52PM (#60295838)
    So, where we used to drink cheap booze out of a glass bottle covered in a brown paper bag, we've now found a way to eliminate the glass bottle. Win!

  • So if it degrades after use, what makes it degrade?

    If you drink just a quarter of the bottle, how long until the bottle disintegrates and the Walker goes out for a stroll?

    Or is it only in outdoor conditions it would degrade for some reason... maybe contact with water?

    • And does it degrade if unopened? People give it as gifts, sometimes the bottles sit around for months or more before someone says, "Oh, we can open that bottle!".

  • Or are they still plastic-based?

    But, ... hold on a minute... are you telling me the bottle used to be NOT glass??
    Seriously? ... Was there a Honey Boo-Boo picture on the front too?

    Not even the cheapest crap doesn't come in a proper glass bottle over here... How does anyone buy the thing that is so thrashy, it comes in a *plastic* bottle?

  • How does it decide to disintegrate when it's "done"? Suppose I open the container, and take drinks from it, but don't finish it for, say, two months? The single malt I buy lasts me at least six months after I open it.

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